


another life

by Sylveonsfuckery



Category: No Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylveonsfuckery/pseuds/Sylveonsfuckery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fuck i dont know.<br/>shit i mean this is just about clover getting her ass handed to her by the world i guess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	another life

Chapter One.

 

I woke up to a crisp smell of menstrual blood. This worried me, as I have grown to not have a uterus, and Ali doesn’t have the capability of childbirth. It meant that somebody else was here. I looked over at Jakob’s bed, indeed, he had his monthly score getting dressed beside his rustled bed. I silently giggled knowing for almost a fact that she had bled on him. I almost used my voice to laugh when I thought of Jakob finding a bloody condom near his bed on the floor. The petite girl noticed me, and fled out. Moments like this make my day. The suffering of others, the smell of discomfort, and the beautiful reds and blues of the paintings three feet above my headboard. 

Jakob often thinks he can hurt people directly, and it bites him in the ass a lot of times. I usually don’t fight back, it was useless. He hated change, and that bit him even harder. I was mostly the target of his violence, but in his defense, I'm an easy target. I’d kill him if he laid a finger on Ali and he knows it. Everybody knows it, she doesn’t have a scratch on her. When my mother got sick, I was there to help and protect her. The hospital does that now, and now I need somebody else. My birth father is still unknown to me, but if I knew him he’d be a dead man for taking the life of my other mom. 

Jakob always seemed a bit off to me. As if he truly couldn’t control his temper tantrums. See, he goes into these fits of rage over the strangest things. I never know what his trigger is: sometimes I walk in too loudly and he throws a fit; sometimes I'm not loud enough. He always hits me or kicks me for it. It’s not a big deal to me, since I heal quickly and have barely any nerve receptors. I’m his scapegoat. He’s awful strong, so my bruises last for hours sometimes. 

Ali is my safe haven. She always has something of meaning to say. Always thinking about something valid. Nothing false ever comes out off her mouth, or at least I’ve never heard it. I suppose baby jargon wouldn’t count. I should include that she is a sterile mutation. She has no breasts or eggs. In our society, the child decides gender upon the sixteenth birthday, until then they are genderless. She sometimes gets high on THC with me every once in awhile, as mutations have to because the mutations in our genes will become malignant if we don’t. It also prevents us from going insane, which happened often in the beginning new era, but the scientists working on us had us on medicated marijuana to keep us at bay. According to our teachers, beginning new era experiments were drug addicts and homeless individuals.

It seems stupid to waste her knowledge on figuring out why my genes have two mutations. She should be leading. I’ve told her, but she doesn’t listen to me. I can’t imagine what makes me so special aside from my quirk. Her intellectuality fascinates me, but she needs to do something more powerful.

That being said, Ali is beautiful. She could light up a room with her eyes. Her hair weaves a beautiful blue and pink tapestry. I hate to see her sad, her emotions are like bricks to me. Her smile makes me want to scream nice things at her. When she scrunches up her face I want to squeeze her tightly in my embrace. I once told her she was pretty. I’m sure she shrugged it off, we were eleven anyway. I’m hoping she will return my affections but I'm almost certain she isn’t interested in me sexually or romantically. 

sometimes she tells me what she dreams about. Aside from being smart as hell, she can make describing a ceiling fan sound sexy. I hate how she makes me feel. She says that when she dreams she often knows she’s dreaming, that seemed weird to me. I didn’t know how to imagine that feeling. She even dreams of beautiful things. Butterflies and birds, green grass on the lawns and purple morning glories that last all day, all year. Her mind is so fantastical. I wish I could see how she works, I wish I could know how she keeps such a beautiful conscience.

last night, she dreamed a dream composed of only nightmarish things. Dead mutations, burning cigarettes on the streets that always gave off puffs of smoke. Animals that had missing, gory limbs. She explained how she felt no fear when she walked down the street. how she felt numb. How dark the sky was, like a series of haunted horrors. Her feet would dance with each other trying to cross her legs.

I held her in my arms, watching closely where they were. She told me once a few years ago that she didn’t like anybody to touch her but me, I felt blood rush to my cheeks and somewhere lower when she said that. Her eyes played a game with mine, we chased our tails trying to figure out how to explain her lucid dreams. She was in hysterical tears trying to figure out why she didn’t help the screaming people in the bone crushing machine. Her bright grey eyes searched for somewhere on me she could platonically touch. Apparently, she couldn’t find one. Her hand rocketed toward my breast and she squeezed hard. I let out a small yelp of confused pleasure and she looked at me, tears drying and eyes widened. She hadn’t ever heard my voice in that tone, I thought. She must be confused as to why I made that sound. But no, it took me a minute, but I slowly realised that she had never heard my voice before at all. I suddenly remembered how I had never talked in front of her for fear of embarrassing myself. She seemed uncannily okay with it, I was wondering if she was more shocked by my blatant ignorance of her hand, or my voice.

She smiled, and wearily said 

“...it’s…” she laughed a little.

“i like it”. Again, I wasn’t sure whether she meant my breast or my voice. 

“youre- youre voice I mean”, she apparently meant my voice. 

“but your boobs are nice too”. So she knew where her hand was.

i suppose she didn’t necessarily know what impact it made, as she didn’t hang out with other females.

Most people weren’t male or female, the third gender, no matter how hard we tried, never had a name other than just “the third gender”. It was fine, because we generally liked how it sounded like an action/sci-fi movie title. Some of us will choose a female form because it’s more aesthetically pleasing, some because we feel better in a female body, some because it’s just too much work to have a penis.

Ali didn’t take her hand away. She stopped squeezing, though. I wondered if she was going to take this further, but figured she wouldn’t, as she obviously didn’t think of this situation sexually. “Ali…” I hadn’t ever said her name either, there are many things i’ve never said. The only coherent sentences I knew how to construct were things like “how are you?” to which the apparent answer was “I'm good”. The truthful answer always led to more conversing, which I was not a fan of. Ali looked at me the way girls look at third gender people when they want to kiss them. I knew the drill. closed my eyes, put my hands on her waist, and she kissed me. Before I could take in the situation, she looked me right in the eyes and wistfully said 

“did you like that?”. She smiled from ear to ear, and I let myself smile genuinely, which I didn’t do often. 

the next morning I woke up sore. Ali was beside sleeping soundly. I wanted to wake her up, but I thought that might be rude since we were up so late. I got up silently and stretched, letting my wings contort and bend. My horns’ bruises were gone. All of my bruises and scars were gone. The feathers on my wings were damp from last night’s pity party. And sweaty at the base. A few downy feathers were stuck together. I went into the bathroom and took a satisfactory shower. The soap didn’t burn as it usually did. That meant that my skin had hardened. 

i heard a small groan from ali as I stepped out of the bathroom. She smiled at me like a girlfriend would. I hoped she wanted me to date her, but I figured this’d be a one night stand. “hey” I said. I smiled at her. She patted the space beside her where I was laying. “come back, I'm lonely”. I blushed and walked toward the bed. I lay down and wrapped my wings around her. She wiggled around in glee and started playing with my feathers.  wanted to make a snarky comment, but I thought it may either hurt her or the situation, I kept it in. 

I ran my fingers through her hair, lightly brushing it. The knots and tangles came out almost immediately. Having nothing else to do with my fidgety hands, I rubbed her back hard. She seemed happy. I looked her in the eyes, which was difficult. She only had two. Even sets of eyes confused me. 

“They are blue” I said quietly, still smiling. 

“green, but close.” she giggled. 

“Your voice is pretty… I wish you would talk more.”

I hated my voice.  Even now it’s gross, raspy and monotonous. My entire body shivered. She held me tightly. 

“what was that all about?”, she said. I shrugged and buried my face into her diaphragm. She kissed me, I blushed. 

“How old are you? I mean like, in years.” I shrugged. 

“somewhere.... 19…”. She grinned. 

“well I'm 19, have we never told our age?” 

“in the way, it-” I forgot how to build to sentences.

 

“It gets in the way?”

 

I nodded.

 

That afternoon, I decided to go out for a walk. My hips were sore from the inside. I struggled to get up out of bed. Ali was still asleep, sometimes I wonder if she spends half of her life asleep. I got dressed and walked outside, my wings stretched to dry out. Oddly enough, due to nostalgic value, most people didn’t fly. This was also because it was slightly inconvenient, wings were large and hard to control. I went to the coffee shop and signed to to the bartender a double-tall mocha with exactly six packets of sugar. I ordered ali a small coffee with no sugar, and a cup of creamer. Ali was the only person to ever get my coffee right. As I walked home, I noticed the small caterbugs that were splayed about the streets, there were so many that nobody bothered to pick them up, or even just dust them out of the way.

I arrived back at the dorm, Ali was still asleep. 

“Ali.”, She sprung up. 

“Yeah? oh, did you leave?” I nodded. She looked at the coffee in my hand. 

“Smells delicious.”. I went to the drawer and took out a clean skirt of hers. 

“How’d you get that?”  _ you left it over here last time. _ I signed to her. She smiled. She got up and went to the bathroom, took a shower, and changed into her skirt. After she sat down again I came to the quick realisation that I had seen her vagina more than i’ve seen her neck. This was probably because she usually wore super-short skirts and turtlenecks. I played with her tail as she bounced it around. 

“Coffee makes you hyper, doesn’t it?”, she said gleefully. I nodded, her tail in my mouth. 

My tail whipped around, grabbing her coffee and putting it softly on the table. I uncurled it and tackled Ali. She yelped and laughed. As we were wrestling, I managed not to knock anything of high value over. Although I didn’t own many things of high value. 

Jakob walked in. He seemed happy. I ignored him. Ali was now on top of me. Jakob moved to the side and let in a petite, but thick dog. The dog sniffed around and started to bark at Ali. I turned to the side and hissed viciously at him. “Hey don’t hiss at him!”, said Jakob. I turned back around and wrapped my tail around Ali’s waist. Her small, thin hips swiveled side to side as I kept holding on. She laughed. “I give up!” she yelled.

Ali made me let go, I lay down and Glared and jakob,

Jakob looked at me sympathetically. “What’s wrong?”, he asked. W _ hat do you want from me? I  _ signed. He looked at me oddly. “I just want to be friends again.” I slapped him, and hardened my skin, awaiting the reign of terror that was about to ensue. He started to tear up. F _ uck… _ I thought. How could I have made him… this beast of a human being cry? Jakob didn’t truly feel. He denied everything that made society… work! There was no possible way I could comfort him.  _ He’s faking. He.. Has to be faking. There is no fucking way-  _ “Clover, I can’t hurt you anymore...not like this.” I thinked extremely hard. Hesitantly, I tried to talk. “You are my not-lover” He giggled. I slapped him again. “Hate you! I do!” He began walking out. I flipped him off, but he didn’t see me. 

Later that night, I walked to the bar. My feet were sore afterwards, it was farther than I thought. I stumbled inside, I hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. My face hardened as the cold air swept around me. My scales tightened together and my nose tingled. The smell of stale liquor filled my brain. Under the influence, I’ve been told, I’m a much happier person. I don’t mind.

My entire life seemed to revolve around Dimming my own light. I only felt good when I wasn’t myself. Nobody seemed to enjoy my presence when I wasn’t drunk, high, or dead. Ali, after a few hours, drove up to the bar, looking for me. I, unbearably drunk, stumbled towards her and draped myself over her shoulder. I played with her hair and kissed her neck repeatedly. Her cheeks turned a bright strawberry red. I pulled her to the ground and positioned myself atop her, my legs were holding hers down. She pushed me off and picked me up like a large piece of fabric. She laughed and carried me to the car. After she strapped me in, I grabbed her face and yanked it towards mine. I kissed and kept her close to me with all my might. She pulled away after a few seconds, thunk for a minute, and put me in the backseat. After that, I blacked out. 

I remember waking up beside one of Jakob’s secret lovers. I pushed him off the bed. He groaned and woke up. I glared furiously at him. He backed up and ran out of the room. Jakob was sleeping. I felt uneasy, like I had been violated. I crawled into bed beside him. He looked at me angrily. I wrapped my arms around his torso and shoved my face into his chest. He sighed and stayed still. His skin was soft and warm, though he didn’t usually have blankets around him. He made a soft comforting sound. I squeezed my legs together and pushed my face harder on him. I wasn’t sure where Ali was, but I didn’t worry. 

 

On november first, Jakob told me he loved me. I turned him away.

On December fifth, I attended his wake.

It was sad, really. Not in the sense of how he was gone forever and there wasn’t shit we could do to bring him back. But in the sense that, when he died, only ten people were there. Three of his male lovers, his mother, me, ali, the priest, the policemen carrying, driving, and handling his coffin, and him. And nobody cried. The policemen and his mother I could understand, and I, through years of abuse, don’t cry anymore. But Ali was one of the most emotional people I knew. I was worried about her, she hadn’t been acting normal lately.

On the drive home, we were silent. The radio was broken. We listened to the rhythmic sounds of notches on tires and cars driving by. I was in an emotionally vegetative state. None of me felt anything. I even tried to remember what all Jakob had said to me, Anything. A hello, a goodbye, even insults. Nothing. My heart sank when I realised that I could done something. That I could have told him that he shouldn’t take more than prescribed. I could have accepted his advances. But most of all, that I could have saved him. I almost swerved to the side. Ali grabbed hold of the steering wheel, after a few seconds, I found my instinct again. “What the fuck was that?!” she yelled. My eyes widened and my face flushed. I stuttered, try to form a cohesive sentence, and use my voice. I uttered the words “I- d-don’t know”. I hadn’t ever heard- or seen her angry. My voice cracked, tears streaming down my face “I’m- sorry”, I said. The rest of the day, we didn’t talk. 

Everything became dull after Jakob died. They burned all of his belongings, and I never heard from his lovers again. I made sure to Take care of Ali during her crying fits. I wanted her to stop. I needed her to recognise that I was in pain too. I just needed to be comforted. I just needed to cry as hard as she did.

Months later, I found myself at the bar once more. Six drinks, ten drinks, as many as I can afford. No matter how many, I couldn’t forget. 

 

My two favorite hobbies- sex, and revenge.

 

On wednesdays I had made it a tradition to get coffee with Ali. She ordered a small regular coffee, and I ordered a double-tall mocha with exactly six packets of sugar. Ali giggled about the preciseness of my hand gestures when I signed it to the barista. Ali told me during our night out on thursday that she was graduating in six weeks. 

which meant I had six weeks to graduate. 

Joy.

Everybody in my class was better than me. I hated them all. Andrew is a rapist, Shestin is an extreme retroist. Retroists were the sole reason our society was starting to falter. Angry little people who still believed in credit cards and gasoline-powered-machines. People who weren’t satisfied with our country’s newer rape and violence prevention codes. People who still hunted animals for game and trophy. Disgusting humans who’ve cut off their horns just to make a statement. People who will murder other people for money, people who take drugs for fun. The strangest thing is that most retroists don’t seem to know what they want. 

My ice cream was starting to melt, so I ate the rest of it. I hated ice cream. At that part of my life, I was severely nihilistic, I hated just about anything. Ali had told me on multiple occasions that I should see a psychiatrist, but I didn’t listen to her. If I had, he’d probably diagnose with mild depression and a high oral delay. My free time was mostly spent with Ali, so not having her around would be hell. (Everything was hell, I was depressed.) 

After begging Ali to stay with me, she still left me. I hated her for leaving me. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do, but I just wanted her back. She seemed like the only person who bore my presence. I can’t remember exactly what she said as she left, but she definitely said something, and I didn’t want to forget it. But all is fine now. I’m sitting in my chair listening to the sounds of cars whizzing by. My eyebrows twitch and dance while the tiny gusts of wind blow hair into my face. 

Ali flinches every time I mention Jakob. He seemed to trigger her uproars of crying. We spent our time mostly watching birds fly away from nests in the springtime, Ali was quite the poet when it came to lifestyle. Things seemed dull nowadays. We broke up shortly after Jakob died, although we were still friends, I felt a bitterness towards her. Maybe she felt pity for me, or maybe she felt attracted to other people. Or maybe it was because the few words I spoke to her were things like “You are a whore”

 

…

 

Maybe.

Well it just happened that she appeared (uninvited, I might add) at the local bar. We got in a bit of a scuffle over a hot chick and she left with a few scars. It felt nice, her hitting me. She drove home, annoyed, and I stayed and had a grand time with my friends. I went home with a nice hot girl and she went home cock-blocked by yours truly. In the end, it worked out well. 

When I got home, I washed myself thoroughly. The girl’s apartment smelled awful. But the sex was nice, it didn’t actually smell that bad, but I have a habit of complaining. My Taxi driver flirted with me, He kept complimenting me about my gait. Which made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t speak with Ali for years after our bar fight. 

Three weeks after the incident with Ali, I met someone new. We worked out a nice friendship that consisted of sex and borrowing things from each other. It worked out nicely, we both returned things timely and in nice condition. We borrowed the strangest things. Once, I borrowed 63 cents from her, just to see if she’d ask questions, as to: Why only 63? Why so specific? But alas, she never asked questions. She also knew sign language rather well. Which was a big plus. Another HUGE plus were her breasts. I must say, I regret ending our relationship, because that woman had the best tits I’d ever seen. 

More people came and went throughout my life. My legs were growing weary from all the unnecessary walking I did. At some point, I broke my wings. That’s a story I’ll share some other time. One night at a bar, I met a bright stunning woman whose name was mary. Oh, Mary. Mary was a beautiful doe whose name still breaks my heart to say. She was the perfect woman. I lost her to herself. If I had paid attention to her, if I had solely focused on her instead of me, I may still have her by my side. We would have been stars, but instead, she placed herself among, her blood spattered star. I’ll always remember her.

I won’t bore you with the list of people I feel in love/had sex with. It’s a long list, I assure you, but that isn’t the point. The point is, sex doesn’t make you happy, and neither does love. And alcohol sure as hell doesn’t either, what does? You ask? I have no idea. But here’s how you DON’T find the meaning of life.

I was walking down the street, and six blocks away, was a car that sent my life in a twirl. I had my headphones in, and my skin felt harder than steel. It was below freezing, and I, a certified moron, was wearing a crop top and booty shorts. At the time, I was interested in social experiments. I liked to see people’s reactions to things. I was learning english sentence structure. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t necessarily complicated, either. I firstly fucked up by not following the street signs, everything went downhill from there. A car was going (At least) 60 MPH towards me. I woke up in a hospital the next day. Now, the only thing wrong with me now is a scar on my face from the shattered glass. It’s an aesthetically pleasing scar on my eyelid, I won’t complain about it.

The problem was that the hospital couldn’t find my social records. I was straight out of luck. Thankfully, I remembered that my social security card was with me. We cleared most of it up in a few days. I mainly acquired my income by prostitution. There were a lot of laws regarding prostitution, but technically, it was legal. But only if you had no history of STIs, Were not a telekinetic mutation, and had healing abilities. I fit all of those regulations, so off I went, and off I got. My social life was consistently bombarded by backstabbing. I enjoyed my profession. I also enjoyed people who have been my clients being uncomfortable around me. It was strange how differently males acted than female and third genders. Thirds and females often flirted with me until I recognised them, whereas males shied away and avoided my line of sight. 

After a few weeks of bedrest, I went back into the world. Spunky and nihilistic as ever. I went to bed earlier and earlier every night. I didn’t actually feel any different, but I felt as if I was slowly slipping into a dreary depression. I often went outside, and I got excercise. Once I realised that I was getting depressed I, as a truly intelligent being, did nothing. I told myself to get over it. I basically ignored it until it just consumed me. My own transgressions against my morals were nothing to me.

My life went on uneventfully until I enrolled in an art student program. My professor didn’t approve of my sexually active lifestyle, he seemed like a retroist to me so I didn’t bother trying to explain basic common sense to him. Art was my second favorite thing. Although, since the course was constricting enough, pair that with my nights of intimacy, I only had a few hours a week to do other fun things.

I worked out a tight- but accurate and well thought out schedule. I would only go to bars on weekends, and only stay for an hour. That left me enough time to go to work, which was nine hours overnight, then classes right after, then classwork, then two hours of sleep. It was tough, but I made it through a year. That year, I had managed to get out of my depression, get a degree, and make money. I had mostly just taken the art program because I had a huge scholarship for it that practically paid for it.

I didn’t like to think about Jakob, because it made me sad. I didn’t like to think about Ali, either. She made me sad as well. I generally just didn’t enjoy thinking. It become complicated to think, because in our art program, we were told never to think, just draw. Which is brilliant, when you’re just training to be an enormous shitspewer of art. After the program, I got accepted by a rather prestigious online college of arts. I decided that, since it was extremely rare to be accepted, much less reached out to, by this school, I might as well go. I managed to find some hefty scholarships, it was still expensive, ands it wasn’t worth it. I stopped eating normal food for months, I had a strict diet of energy shakes. I often didn’t eat at all. I became frail and weak, and I rarely ever got active. If I wasn’t so focused on that awful program, I may have even had a healthy relationship. And the ensuing mess wouldn’t have occurred, or at least would have been less catastrophically damaging. 

I never went out, and when I did, it was for food. Or to get to foreign classes. Being an artist was hard back then, you had to work hard. Nobody wanted it that way, but it was a highly consumer based market. So you mostly had to learn how to be your client’s bitch.

I had to drop out of the college course because it tore me down so much. I stepped outside, a free woman for the first time in a year. I was so weak, I hadn’t eaten in days. My legs felt like nothing. I got up slowly. I walked outside and fell down the steps. I remember vaguely, Jakob. 

I fell and hit my head, he explained to me. His head wasn’t acne ridden, and his hair was kempt. He pick me up, smiling. He kissed my forehead and carried me valiantly up the three steps. I wrapped myself around his upper torso, dissolving my emotional being into his sternum. I felt so dead. I felt as if I was existing as a machine that could only draw. My entire being was cracked and scratched, scars on my spirit’s neck. Jakob lay me in my bed. I hugged and kissed him one last time and he walked out. He didn’t say a word. Not even goodbye. The door softly shut and I blacked out. I woke up on my bed, with some soggy cereal, a glass of orange juice, and two fried eggs beside my bed. 

That night, when I was regaining my conscience, I wondered about what I saw. Who carried me up those stairs, did I really walk outside? I must have, there are bruises on my legs and knees from falling. Although, I could have done them myself. I had picked up a habit of giving myself bruises after Jakob died. It had just felt strange to not be covered in purple spots. I was started to worry about myself. 

At the doctor’s office, I usually told him I was clumsy. I often purposefully hit my hips, legs, and and other protruding body parts on tables and doors. I stubbed my toe as often as possible. 

My old habits died out, but I still had the whole self inflicted bruising problem. At the time, it didn’t seem like a huge problem. If I had realised what was wrong then, I wouldn’t have started getting into the bigger problems later.

I often dreamed about Jakob coming back to me. As if he just slept in his coffin, and they just dug him up for no reason. When he came back, bits of him were torn. His eyes would be falling out of their sockets, or his teeth would be jagged and he’d be so skinny you could see his bones. He often told me, when he was alive, that he didn’t eat much. Only then, as I sat solemnly in my bed, did I begin to realise that Jakob, so be him severely flawed, was human. He was an actual person, with feelings and sentience and all that. 

My gut wrenched. I curled up into a ball and cried a little. My tears, looked red. I got up again, shocked. I looked at my sheets, it was blood. My tear ducts were a bright but dark red color. Blood was flowing out in tears, down a path that zigged and zagged. I cried more. Was this how it’d always been? I tried to remember what I had seen the last time I cried. I hit my mirror. Hard. It cracked, and made a tree-looking pattern.  I bent over the sink and threw up my lunch. I could taste the vile stench of stomach acid. I clawed at the sink, I wasn’t made for this.  My old memories reconciled in me. I threw up again, it looked like mush. More acid than food. I let out a cry of pain, my throat burned. I went to the fridge to get a glass of milk. I drank it down slowly, and immediately regurgitated it. I yelled. I screamed, I clawed at my throat. It tasted awful. I couldn’t see. My vision was red. I could smell the puddle of vomit on the floor. I hit the ground, flung myself backwards and hit my head on the wall. It hurt. I did it again. I liked it. I convulsively screamed and thrashed my head back and forth. Jakob grabbed my head and held me close, he stroked my hair. I screamed louder, unable to use my neck. I hit the wall, there were blood marks on them. I stopped screaming and cried. I let out a long sound of pain and sadness and cathartically moaned in anguish. I recited poems, desperately gasping for air, I mumbled kurt vonnegut quotes to myself. He rocked me back and forth, I struggled to breathe. 

Jakob visited me often. He brought me flowers and sang to me. He never got angry. He loved me. Jakob was perfect. He loved me. Jakob was perfect. He loved me

I went to the store and the pharmacist seemed shocked to see me. He ran to me, abandoning his patient. 

“Clover!” I looked at him, and set down my three bottles of ibuprofen. He looked at me in a worried way. 

“You haven’t taken your medication in years!” 

“Years?”

“ _ years _ ”

I was stunned. No wonder I had been seeing things. I followed him to the counter. He gave me three times my regular dose of marijuana. 

“you need to catch up, at least a little.”

He winked at me, and walked away. I went back to the house. I was stoned for weeks. I stopped when I noticed I only had one gram left. I set it away in my nightstand and went to bed, it was late. 

I stopped seeing Jakob, which was sad. He made me feel happier. I wasn’t that upset, though. I learned more oral english, which was nice. This way I could tell the barista I don’t need ten fucking packets of sugar.

I called Ali. She didn’t answer.

I went to the pharmacy, chatted with the doctor, and got my medication. On the walked home, I recited poetry, dramatically. A few weeks later, Ali called me. I missed it by a second, and called her right back.

“Ah shit! sorry, hey!”

“Hi.”

She sounded sad.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m ok, I missed you.”

“Well you wanna come over?”

“Just like that? You aren’t mad at me?”

“No, I’ve felt a lot of fucking emotions lately, but anger- at least towards you, isn’t one of them.”

“Oh.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds. 

“I’ll be over soon.”

“Okay.”

I wasn’t sure if she remembered where I lived. Or how soon was soon. I wanted a coffee. I went to my counter, there were bloody marks. I wiped them off, I cleaned up all the dried vomit on my floors. I went into the bathroom, sprayed air freshener, and then remembered that the entire house smelled like vomit covered shit. I emptied a bottle of bleach onto my tile floor. I had hoped that would at least make it not smell like vomit. I mopped it up and washed the windows. I tidied up and lay down. I sighed. The house smelled cleaner, and the wall weren’t bloody or anything. Only then had I realised that there was rotten food I had stored away “Just in case” all over. Pockets of breadcrumbs, bits and pieces of fruit, even apple cores I had saved. I cleaned all that up, and by that time I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and let Ali in. We sat on my couch that didn’t smell of the inner sanctums of my digestive system, and watched tv. I fell asleep. It felt nice, knowing somebody else was here with me. Someone who I could kiss and not feel unstable.

She lay her head on my arm and woke me. “I missed you clover, I feel sad without you.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been pretty sad too.”

“What about?”

The recent events flashed in my head, the vomit, the vile stench, the blood, the pain, all of the emotions I felt then came flooding to me. “I-” I couldn’t talk. She looked at me sympathetically. Ali kissed my shoulder. I, having no idea what else to do, grabbed her, turned us over, and kissed her on her mouth. She opened her mouth, and we made out. 

We didn’t necessarily have sex that night, but we did get undressed. We cuddled some, and some wine she brought over. I woke up with her cuddling me. I played with her fox-like ears. They twitched and swayed. She wrapped her arms around me tighter and let out a big sigh of happiness. I felt happy for the first time in a decade. Ali stayed with me for a few nights. She often smoked with me and slept next to me. She usually fell asleep on the couch, woke up, and got into bed with me. I didn’t mind, I quite liked it. Every morning I baked her eggs and toast, but one morning she said we should go out. The day was sunny and warm, and All the things that made me happy had just happened. Ali had sex with me, the night before we smoked, and I was almost living with the one I loved. 

Things were going great.

I suppose you’d think that something awful happened, or maybe she died. Maybe Ali cheated on me. (She would never do that.) 

But no, We lived like that for a while, we retained our mediocre friends-with-benefits relationship and that was fine. I enjoyed my freedom to go out and sleep with people, but I didn’t find as many people attractive as I had used to. I could admire their aesthetic talent, but I didn’t feel the need to fuck them.

Ali looked at me a lot, which I didn’t notice before. She always seemed to know something.  Something good that I didn’t know. As if the bill was already paid, or the economy had been somehow made better. Like she was holding in a surprise. I always wanted to ask her, but I figured she wouldn’t tell me anyway. 

She often told me she loved me, which made me feel strange. I wanted her to see me as a friend, because that sort of situation always worked out for me. I told her that she was beautiful a lot, but I didn’t see something like that coming. I hoped she didn’t see me a partner, I’d hate to break up when I never even thought it had been existent in the first place. The next morning I ran to the gas station to get some coffee, since I wanted to know if their coffee tasted any better than the shitty coffee shop two miles away. Of course, I was wrong. But it was fun to get up and run around like that so early in the morning. It felt rejuvenating. I wanted to feel like that all the time. 

Ali was awake when I got back, she looked like she had been crying. 

“What’s wrong?”

I asked. “I thought you had left me.” 

“What? No I was just getting coffee-”

I had just then realised that she truly did think of me as a romantic partner. Shit.

“Ali- I wouldn’t leave you like that.” I was letting my mouth think, maybe it had something right to say. “I would never leave you. Ever.” It didn’t

Before I could think of what else to say to fix what I had just done, Ali ran up to me and hugged me. “I love you” She said, half crying. 

My whole life I've been wondering if the events I'm about to tell were true, or if my mind just made them up. I'll leave you to decide that, I suppose.

Ali was walking inside from the bar, she hadn't going there as much lately. I hadn't been to the bar, or even had alcohol in a while, so I was getting slapped from my sobriety. I wasn't feeling well, so Ali went out to get my medication for me. See, in our society, we have this great thing called the tempracard. Where, basically, you can do anything under their name for twenty four hours. It has to be activated online, and it can be easily deactivated. (too easily, really.) Ali brought a strange pill like thing.

"He said you have to take pills now, your recent respiratory tests are showing carbon monoxide damage."

I groaned. "Pills are gross." 

"I know, just take them."

I did as I was told. The next day I began feeling a lot better. My eyes weren't constantly dry, my hearing wasn't hypersensitive, and my arms could actually lift things. I wanted to know whether or not it was the pill, so I went to the doctor's office to get an MRI.

the MRI didn't show anything unusual, except for a large bit of cancer in my frontal lobe. They took out the solid bits, and gave me a low dosage of targeted acid.

I went back home and, of course, Ali was waiting for me. She was laying on the couch,

looking ready to go somewhere. I didn't want to question her, she seemed happy. Anything I would have said would have been detrimental to her mood. She jumped up and ran to me. She seemed ecstatic about something. "Jakob's back!"

"What? the hel- agh!"

Jakob, indeed, was back.

"Hi clover"

Jakob was right there in front of me. I stared at him blankly.

"Clover, look at this" He walked through Ali, she shivered.

I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, but I remember it being something along the lines of  _ what the hell is going on am I tripping on acid right now ALI are you ok?!  _ or a similar worried amalgam of questions. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a soda. "You. Are... A ghost."

"I'm a ghostie-ghoo!"

"... okay, well I'm going to get some sleep, I am hallucinating you."

I hadn't hallucinated something as strong as this before, but I figured ridding the cancer in my frontal lobe may have helped. He walked to me. Apparently, spectres have 

to learn to fly.

"I have unfinished business."

"Don't care."

"Clover, I was so awful to you..."

"Don't care."

"Clover, I have to be kind to you now, it's the only way I can ascend to the afterlife. I'm stuck here because I was such a dick to you"

"That is the single gayest thing i've ever heard."

"Clover, I AM gay."

"and you're getting gayer by the second."

"Clover, won't you just listen? I just need to not be a dick to you for like, a while, and then i'll leave!"

"How do you know?"

He didn't respond.

I thought for a moment.

"Fine, but don't touch Ali, not even in a good way."

"Alright."

He was translucent, and he had no clothes, or genitalia. He didn't have wings or anything. He was just Jakob, but see-through and floaty. I could grab him or slap him. I could touch him, I could just about do everything he did to me. I wanted to let him be nice to me, but I just felt so weird around him. I didn’t feel unsafe, I just felt...Strange. The next few weeks, I tolerated him. He opened doors for me, moved things out of my way, normal spectre things. Ali was getting jealous of Jakob. He was treating me well now, which I suppose made her feel like she had better than him. Jakob also looked at me kinder. I was beginning to feel strange, my eyes kept straying from Ali to him. Ali would tell him to stay away from me constantly. He stayed around me. I didn’t not enjoy his presence, but I didn’t necessarily want him to stay. 

My instincts were telling me that something was wrong. My spine shivered, my eyes twitched. Jakob was nowhere to be found. I felt awful, as if there were something living in my torso. My stomach ached. All my body was sore. I couldn’t move, I was standing completely still. My mouth opened and closed compulsively. I suddenly couldn’t see. My ears were ringing horribly. My teeth chattered, and my jaw clenched. I felt a twisting in my lungs, I couldn’t breathe. I convulsed on the ground. I held onto the bed, a glass of water fell onto my shoulder.  I tried to keep my head still, it seemed like the room around me was spinning. After everything stopped spinning, I got up. I didn’t feel any pain, and the room wasn’t messed up. There wasn’t any blood anywhere. I was confused, I blinked rapidly. I felt a tight knot in my head, my eyes were sore. I could hear Jakob groaning. “What’s wrong, you twat?”

“My head hurts.”

I froze. I heard myself say that.

“...I feel weird.” I said, without my own consent.

“Jakob- Where are you?”

“I’m beside the bed, I don’t se-” He started making weird moaning sounds as I rubbed my neck.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m… feeling… things.”

“What kind of things?”

I didn’t hear a response.

“Jakob!”

Something made me look up alarmed.

“I’m fine.”

I wasn’t sure which one of us said that.

“Are you- Inside me?”

“What?! No!”

“Jakob, I mean spiritually.”

“I- don’t think spectres can have sex.”

“Jakob, you ass! Quit fucking around and get out of my body!”

“I can’t I would if I could!”

Ahah, great. My body now half-way belongs to a spectre.

“Maybe it’s because we have tied souls?”

“Maybe it’s because your an annoying ass who can’t keep his grabby-ass assy hands to him ass self you ass.”

He didn’t reply, he just laughed at me. I hated him. I hit my thigh unbelievably hard. It hurt, a lot. I looked at myself in the mirror. I could see my eyes, which were always too big. My arms, which were short, My thick neck, My awful cheekbones. “Whoa…”

“What?”

“This is how you… think you look?”

“Yea?”

Silence. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he. Since I wasn’t doing well with my hand-eye coordination, I couldn’t go online and shop. I struggled to open the door, the fresh air smelled ratched. I walked to the grocery store to get some food.

I didn’t want Jakob to know anything more about me than he already did. I was worried that he watched me while I slept. I went to the third aisle, saw that my coffee wasn’t there, and left. I couldn’t think straight. Jakob’s gayness was conflicting with my own. There was a bigender person, and I swear to god I got an erection. I hated this situation. Jakob being in me felt  _ wrong _ in every way. I honestly wanted to punch myself in the face. But if I died, we’d just share spectre forms. There’s the catch, even if you kill yourself, you have to stay with your spectre for eternity. It’s a paradox that the programmers never worked out. I didn’t want to be rude, but his aura was making me feel so self-conscious. Even more than before. Before, I just hated myself, but now, I hated people looking at me, I hated being seen. I hated being. Suicide, now, was such a dumb solution. We just came back as spectres, so there wasn’t a point in self-caused death. The programmers were, honestly, lazy assholes. Existence is pain, for me at least. I wanted to throw myself out into traffic, It wouldn’t be difficult. I generally didn’t have such an urge for this. It felt strange, how much I wanted to. 

As I walked inside the house, I felt the cold air sweep my hair out of my face. I walked to the kitchen. I was feeling as though I couldn’t control myself, half of my energy was dedicated to him.  Jakob was trying to get out, I could tell. I wasn’t happy. I hadn’t been happy for a while, but I certainly wasn’t happy right then. Iost control and threw my back against the wall. I screeched, my wings were fractured. It’s funny, my little outbursts. They were so random and- haha, I couldn’t even tell what I was doing. Ali ran into the room and held me back. I kept thrashing myself away. She threw me down and pinned me, making sure my mouth was closed. I stopped seizuring. I got up, fixed my clothes, and continued making my cereal. 

“Why?” she asked.

“Huh? Why what?”

“You told me you hated yourself...I mean, you said a lot but that’s what stuck out.”

“I- didn’t mean to.”

she didn’t talk for a while, we just stood in silence.

“You know the truth comes out when you can’t control yourself.”

“It may have been Jakob.”

“It was you, I heard you.”

“No, he’s inside me.”

She looked a little bit set off.

“he’s  _ inside  _ you?!”

“Y-yeah hu- NO! not- not like that! I mean he’s tied to me! to my- soul, yeah.”

She didn’t answer. I didn’t say anything else.

I sat down on the couch, Ali sat beside me.

“...What does it feel like?” She asked.

“...Wierd.”

“Oh.”

I began to wonder why she was seemingly dazed, but Jakob interrupted my thoughts. 

“She’s baked as fuck.”

I slapped my knee, in an attempt to cause him pain, he yelped in my head. My knee hurt, but not as much as my soul. I felt as if I had died, Just for slapping his knee. I wondered how I’d feel if I had killed him. I entertained the thought. My ears twitched. This was it.

I held my head, and put a cotton roll in my mouth. My foot started to spaz.

“It’s coming” I said, weakly.

I needed to take my medication, but I couldn’t reach it in time. I ended up knocking it over. I convulsed violently, every part of my rang back and forth, side to side. My ear were losing blood, and I couldn’t hear. I remember Ali crying profusely looking into my center eye. She was scared. I was scared. It was awful. I heard Jakob screaming in agony behind me. My thoughts were all tangled together like a great big mess. I could feel my heart beating randomly. It sounded like sixteen bombs going off all one after another. My organs shifted, my eyes rolled back, My fourth and fifth eye combusted. I felt streams of blood roll smoothly down my cheeks, I grabbed Ali. My brain felt as if it was in a blender. Ali held me down the best she could. I thrashed my head against the ground. I concrete floor began to crack. My self-destructive tendencies overrode my desire to live. I pushed Ali away and ran into the bathroom. She yelled for me to come back, and sprinted to me, I slammed the door on her fingers, a satisfying crack erupted. I hit the mirror and it sent shards flying. I got up on the counter, and grated myself against the broken glass. My skin had little notches that stung. I took off my shirt, doused it in alcohol and put in on. The sting felt nice. I grabbed a lighter, My fingers fidgeted to light it. I slipped and fell. I could hear Ali screaming in pain and regret. Jakob yelled at me from the inside. I got back up on the counter, and looked at myself.  _ I’m a naked beast… _ I thought. My skin was horrid, the cuts weren’t going away. Loss of healing was a side effect of my convulsion prevention medication. I had to take off the shirt and breathe. I fell down again, but this time, I didn’t get back up. Jakob was silent. 

“I want to die…”

I started to cry.

“I.. Want to..” I grabbed the lighter, fully aware of Ali watching in horror. 

“C-Clover please don’t.”

“I want to die, Ali.”

She took my lighter. 

I looke d at her, sobbing, bloody, and missing two eyes. 

She came closer, and sat in my lap. 

I looked at the lighter she took.

I looked at the shirt. She took my shirt off.

I took her hand and interlaced mine.

She kissed my cheek and rubbed my eyelids, which were sunken in. I ran my fingers through her hair. 

“It just keeps going…”

“I know…”

She took my pill bottle and put it beside me. She went into the kitchen and got a glass of water, setting it on the counter. She got wet, soft rag and began washing my legs and arms. She moved on to my face, cleaning out the gouges where my eyes used to be. I smiled modestly. She kissed my forehead. She cleaned my hips and vagina, I felt weird during that bit. She looked at me sadly.

“If you’re going to do it, you may as well be clean.”

I smiled. 

“But…”

I began to worry.

“You have to be happy too.”

She got on top of me and took off her shirt. I blushed. My eyes were staring at her face still. I was still shocked by the convulsions, so sex seemed inappropriate at the time.

“What’s wrong?”

Instead of telling her, I just wrapped around her and hugged her. I laid us down and cuddled her. 

“Love isn’t the calm after the storm, Ali.”

I looked past her eyes, deeper. I looked into her.

“Love isn’t anything.”

I bet she thought I was going to spew some shit about how love is persuing the promise you made; or some dumb shit like that.

“Love-”

I took a breath.

“-love is a construct we made to excuse repetitive mating.”

“I don’t love you.”

That was it.

“I will never love you.”

I smiled, she kept a content face.

“I don’t love you…”

I hugged her.

“I just like sex, okay?”

She nodded.

she finally spoke. “Love… Is what makes us stay. Together.”

“No, Ali. Sex is what’s making us stay together. The only reason I liked you was your aesthetic value- then we had sex. Then I wanted more, and it became a habit. I can’t believe… You actually think I can love?”

She didn’t speak. I don’t think she was sad, because what I said was true. She knew it, too. I’m sure my ears would have been low if they weren’t torn up. 

“Could you help me clean up.”

She agreed to stay and help. I wondered why she was so sad about me. I didn’t think I meant that much to her. She wouldn’t look at me the entire time we cleaned. I gave her about ten dollars for helping, and she left. I never heard anything from jakob. 

He may have gone away, or he’s just been silent all these years. But hopefully he ascended into his next life. I can’t imagine how great that feels. Years later, I heard from Ali. She had gotten a job at a nice computer tech company. She dealt with A.I. Justice.

She told me something that made me a little at peace. She wanted to tell me earlier, but apparently, she didn’t want me to be around to find out. I wish I could tell you what she said, but she doesn’t want to get pursued. I don’t know what that means, but it’s my time. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a monster. So I’m leaving. I ate the entire container of heart regulation medication- so I should just doze off soon. I’ll be gone in a minute.

  
  
  
  


Oh, this is taking long.

  
  
  
  


Shit. I thought it’d be less painful than this. I don’t want to go anymore…

I don’t want to die, I want Ali back. I want to tell you what she said...I want to live. I want to love her again. I wish I didn’t say all the dumb shit about love. I want to go to her and fuck her right on the spot. I want to go and grab her and bring her back and never let her go. I don’t want to die anymore I want to live.

 

I can’t die, I’m not ready, no, stories end happily. My story will not end with death, I won’t allow it. I don’t want this, I want to live. I need to live. No, I’ll tell you what she said if I can live. Please, I want to live. I just need to keep writing, you just need to keep reading. I just need to live. I’m a ticking bomb, I won’t die like this. I- I can’t move. I’m...Tired. I’ll just...sleep. I’ll sleep and I’ll be alright if I sleep. Okay, I’m okay. Goodni

  
  
  
  


Epilogue--

The air is warm, and the sky is blue and rainy. My arm is resting on Clover’s favorite chair. I still live in this old house, but it’s fine. The floors are stained with blood and crushed pills. The bleached parts of the walls have been painted over. Our calendar is still on the day Clover died. The image of her dead eyes still rings in my eyes. My eyes flutter around, looking for something to stare at. I’m desperately trying to reconcile with myself. My body shakes as I reach for a small blade, I cut my nails, sharpening them.  It’s a weird feeling. It feels as if my hand is clay, and I’m carving. My hand flinches as my claws run across my arms. I scratch over and over, slowly and painfully. My mouth makes a painful sound, one that’s held back and muffled through the bullet I’m biting. The street makes its routine afternoon whiz of cars driving by. Clover, my world has collapsed. It’s only a matter of time before i find you again, in another life.

  
  



End file.
